Reporters Sans Frontieres catalogues media suppression over past year

by admin
Mar 13, 2012

In a statement released Monday, Reporters Sans Frontieres, detailed the "violence, threats and propaganda aimed at journalists and media defenders seen as government critics" since 2011.

Extracts reproduced below:

"On 5 November, the information and media ministry ordered news sites to register with the government, yet another restriction on the free flow of information – and a step toward heavier government control of the media."

"One day after the registration order, the ministry blocked access to four major independent news sites critical of the government – Sri Lanka Mirror, Sri Lanka Guardian, paparacigossip9 and lankawaynews."

"On 25 February, the TamilNet news site was hit by Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks. The site’s personnel are trying to keep it on line. Lanka News Web and Lanka-e-News faced similar attacks last year."

"At the 19th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last February, Reporters Without Borders called for adoption of a resolution condemning Sri Lankan government attacks on freedom of information".

Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button